Lesnar had six televised matches this year, and two of them (vs. Strowman, and vs. Strowman vs. Kane) were mediocre at best. He had some great ones, to be sure - but not enough to make up for the fact that he was barely there.

Scurll had great matches throughout the year, including the fatal fourway at WK, several matches in the BOSJ (Ospreay, Ricochet, Takahashi, Dragon Lee), vs. KUSHIDA in ROH, and a few in PWG (with ZSJ vs. Ricochet and Sydal, vs. Chuck Taylor), and I'd put his overall quality at least on par with Lesnar ... but he did it in way more matches.

Lesnar has the top title in the biggest company in the world, but to me that's basically his argument - kayfabe plus four big matches. Scurll, for his part, did win the IWGP Junior title, and held the ROH TV title. That's obviously not the same, but he's not a slouch, either.

I love Takahashi, and his matches against Dragon Lee were among my favorites of the year. Ultimately, however, WALTER had more great matches against a more diverse array of opponents, and that's enough for me.

I really want to vote for Takahashi even though I hate him, but I don't know enough about WALTER to vote against

Click to expand...

Wait, why?

Click to expand...

I went into this at length in the puro thread. It's a good hate. He puts on great matches but his demeanor makes him (to me) unlikeable but in a way that I go out of my way to watch his matches in the hopes that he loses. He's the unicorn that is a heel I don't like but actually buy into the old school mentality of a heel that draws because you actively want to see him lose.

So I had no experience watching Takahashi before today, I vaguely knew who he was, but never saw him. I just watched three matches in a row (vs. Kushida, Ricochet, & Dragon Lee) and I've come to a realization
I think I hate Takahashi
I don't mean that in like a Roman Reigns kind of hate, but he's just so fucking effective at conveying himself in the ring that I just want to see him get beat. Part of that may not be so much him but my overall inexperience with NJPW in general that while he did some heelish shit (like the incident with Dragon Lee's mask) he's won all the matches I've seen in convincing clean fashion. The matches are great and I enjoy watching them, I just kinda really dislike Takahashi and look forward to coming across a match he loses, and I mean that in the best possible way towards him

He is in his second run as the PROGRESS Atlas Champion, and is a tag team champion in wXw. He also had at least ten matches that I'd give at least four stars to in this time frame (one of which I gave five stars in the ratings thread), including:

I'm torn here. The Bar won the tag titles 3 times, and while lately they haven't been anything to write home about, their feud with Ambrose/Rollins and the now unfortunately forgotten greatness of the Hardy feud for a while they made the tag team division one of RAW's highlights. But I feel like I can't vote for them with the current state the tag division is, and they're the ones at the helm.

So it's not so much torn as I like the Bar, but the G1 winning Naito is still the obvious choice

Naito. The lack of strong competition for much of the year may not have been the Bar's fault, but they were hurt by it (at least in comparison with Naito) nonetheless. Doesn't feel fair to give them a pass for theoretically being able to do better when others haven't gotten that same benefit.